MD & DO Why Do Some Schools Make it Difficult to Honor Clerkships?

[desired member named]

I understand that a school would not want a "below average" student to honor every rotation; however, logically, it seems like having their students honor a lot of rotations would allow them to have better match results, thus making the school look better. What am I not understanding here?

I am referring to schools that say you need BOTH great evals and high shelf scores to honor. And also not give you the day off before the shelf exam (apparently some schools do).

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[Iz_FtB]

 

[ndafife]

I understand that a school would not want a "below average" student to honor every rotation; however, logically, it seems like having their students honor a lot of rotations would allow them to have better match results, thus making the school look better. What am I not understanding here?

I am referring to schools that say you need BOTH great evals and high shelf scores to honor. And also not give you the day off before the shelf exam (apparently some schools do).

Schools say in their deans letter what percent of students honor every rotation. If 50% are honoring every rotation, then you're not going to get much credit/benefit for your honors.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

I wish it were as easy as getting good evals and a high shelf score. At my school you can meet all the criteria and not get it because the school has arbitrarily decided that only x amount of people can get it on any given month (and that X is really low, like 2-3). So on any given rotation about 5-6 will qualify but then your grade basically comes down to the roll of the dice.

 

[desired member named]

Then why not just avoid mentioning the percentage? I guess this is just a theoretical discussion with no perfect choice.

I just think that, if the school wants its students to match the best, then 100% of its students would have honors. Obviously that would not happen, but if program directors did not know that 100% of students honored, then that would gives the students great odds. Of course when the straight honors student ends up doing poorly during residency, that would reflect poorly on the school, but I hope you understand what I mean.

 

[ndafife]

Then why not just avoid mentioning the percentage? I guess this is just a theoretical discussion with no perfect choice.

I just think that, if the school wants its students to match the best, then 100% of its students would have honors. Obviously that would not happen, but if program directors did not know that 100% of students honored, then that would gives the students great odds. Of course when the straight honors student ends up doing poorly during residency, that would reflect poorly on the school, but I hope you understand what I mean.

If schools don't give a grade breakdown, then getting honors in clinicals becomes like getting honors in the preclinical years. Aka it doesn't mean anything. And if 100% of people get honors, people are going to start to see the disconnect between the grade, and whatever comments from the evaluation are present in the dean's letter

 

[desired member named]

If schools don't give a grade breakdown, then getting honors in clinicals becomes like getting honors in the preclinical years. Aka it doesn't mean anything. And if 100% of people get honors, people are going to start to see the disconnect between the grade, and whatever comments from the evaluation are present in the dean's letter

Right, but instead of a school giving out 5% honors to its clerkship, why not 10%? Why not 20%? Why not only .2% so that it makes those couple students look like superstars? Where should the line be drawn so that the a good number of students get honors to help them match better, but knowing that this forces less students to honor, making them match worse (thus making school look worse).

 

[ndafife]

Right, but instead of a school giving out 5% honors to its clerkship, why not 10%? Why not 20%? Why not only .2% so that it makes those couple students look like superstars? Where should the line be drawn so that the a good number of students get honors to help them match better, but knowing that this forces less students to honor, making them match worse (thus making school look worse).

I think you are really over rating how much 3rd year grades affect match results.

And if there was a set answer for what percentage honoring is best, then every school would have the same % breakdown.

Take the feedback you got this rotation and do better on your next one, and learn from what worked/didn't work for your studying to do better in your next rotation

 

[desired member named]

I haven't gotten any clerkship grades back yet. My step is high enough that I think I can get by with straight passes all third year. Although it would suck if my step score gets converted to "pass" and then I only "pass" all third year clerkships, hahah.

I was just curious about this.

 

[watermelon master]

I haven't gotten any clerkship grades back yet. My step is high enough that I think I can get by with straight passes all third year. Although it would suck if my step score gets converted to "pass" and then I only "pass" all third year clerkships, hahah.

I was just curious about this.

curious too

 

[studentdocftw]

I haven't gotten any clerkship grades back yet. My step is high enough that I think I can get by with straight passes all third year. Although it would suck if my step score gets converted to "pass" and then I only "pass" all third year clerkships, hahah.

I was just curious about this.

A step score is never high enough to justify straight passes all third year. Passes on all of your clerkships will bring your clinical acumen into question. Don't give PDs a reason to question whether or not your board performance will translate on the wards.

 

[Dwan]

Schools say in their deans letter what percent of students honor every rotation. If 50% are honoring every rotation, then you're not going to get much credit/benefit for your honors.

No (or very few) PDs really care to dissect and differentiate the grading systems of 150+ schools, then weight it appropriately to tons of applicants. They just want you to get the honors. At the med school for my residency program, we give easy honors and almost everyone matches really well here regardless of step. No one will get screened for not honoring their field's rotation, or be judged for poor clinical skills if they have excellent evals. (at my old med school, most people would fail honors because of shelf cutoffs, and excellent evals didn't save them because a non-honor clinical grade is often judged to reflect mediocre clinical skills).

 

[libertyyne]

 

[differentiating]

Third year grades are bs, and I’d like to think most PDs are aware of that. There was literally no difference in my performance on blocks I honored and blocks I passed. I know people who had straight passes in 3rd year as well as people who had enough honors to get AOA, and based on my experiences working with them, I’d much rather trust my/my family’s care to the one who passed.

Of course, there are also people who barely pass every rotation because they’re legitimately terrible to work with, but they’re the minority. For most it’s a crapshoot in my experience.

 

[username456789]

Everyone is the best at everything, and don’t ever let the real world convince you otherwise.

Go get that Honors, you earned deserve it!

 

[NickNaylor]

Grades are ultimately a mechanism by which two things about you are succinctly summarized: your degree of competency and a comparison of your performance to your peers. If your grading scheme doesn’t do those things - i.e., if the sensitivity for getting honors is too low - then the utility of the grade becomes useless.

Of course, the other part of this equation is that the grade has to actually measure what it says it measures. One might argue that clerkship grades don’t do that particularly well, but that’s another problem and issue for discussion.

 

[IntheClouds4ever]

Definitely a crap shoot with variables. Didn’t get honors in IM due to missing part (a few days) of the rotation to be with my hospitalized kiddo. Comat score was well over the minimum for honors, preceptor comments were glowing, and they offered to write a LOR as well, but alas, no honors. I wouldn’t worry too much about your actually grade. Just make sure to get good comments for the your application and just do your best to study for the comats. Comments and LORs are more important than the grade IMO. I honored a few rotations, but my best comments for my application came from rotations with a pass only (even though the preceptor recommended honors)- the pass in these rotations were due to BS minimum procedure count requirements which were difficult to obtain on certain rotations that were outpatient only clinics.

 

[AnatomyGrey12]

the pass in these rotations were due to BS minimum procedure count requirements which were difficult to obtain on certain rotations that were outpatient only clinics.

Lol sounds about right. That is absolutely asinine to make procedure counts included in the criteria for honors.

 

[IntheClouds4ever]

Lol sounds about right. That is absolutely asinine to make procedure counts included in the criteria for honors.

Yup. I mean you could kiss ass and try to do every immunization or something trivial if it means that much to you, but it wasn’t worth the effort to me.

 

[NotAProgDirector]

if program directors did not know that 100% of students honored, then that would gives the students great odds.

No, it wouldn't. In our program, we have each reviewer review all of the apps from a group of schools. So if everyone is getting honors, we will see it. If a school doesn't report their breakdowns, we assume that's because a huge number all get Honors. So we ignore it, and other factors play a larger role. The extreme is some medical schools that are entirely P/F -- including all clerkships. Everyone getting Pass is the same as everyone getting Honors. We usually don't interview candidates from those schools -- it's impossible to know what their performance was.

Right, but instead of a school giving out 5% honors to its clerkship, why not 10%? Why not 20%? Why not only .2% so that it makes those couple students look like superstars? Where should the line be drawn so that the a good number of students get honors to help them match better, but knowing that this forces less students to honor, making them match worse (thus making school look worse).

If a school gives out a lower percentage of Honors, then those that get the Honors may have a better match. If 75% get honors, then we know people in the 3rd quartile are getting Honors, it hurts those who actually have a better performance because we can't tell the difference.